What's Wrong With Saul Alinsky?

angrysoba said:
Does it? I have no idea. So why didn't Newt Gingrich mention Lee Atwater in South Carolina?

How about instead of dodging the question with "whataboutery" you just tell us what is so demonic about Saul Alinsky?
Click to expand...
Why are you so afraid to hear that they are peas in a pod?

The thing that is bad about Alinsky is the same thing that is bad about Lee Atwater... they are devious schemers in the service of the party of Arlen Specter.


Alinsky: "According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a situation. Alinsky would say, "The first step in community organization is community disorganization."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

Atwater: "The truth is that there was very little that was subconscious about the G.O.P.'s relentless appeal to racist whites. Tired of losing elections, it saw an opportunity to renew itself by opening its arms wide to white voters who could never forgive the Democratic Party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy


Both equally polarizing and polemic, both based on the premise that 'It's OK if 'we' do it, but not if 'they' do it', when the end result is that the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.
 
Okay, it looks like crimresearch picked up the ball and actually moved the discussion forward.

We can all go back to ignoring mhaze.
 
crimresearch said:
.... "According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a situation. Alinsky would say, "The first step in community organization is community disorganization.".....
Click to expand...

You mean like ... a .... "community organizer"?

BWHAHAHAHHA!
 
crimresearch said:
The thing that is bad about Alinsky is the same thing that is bad about Lee Atwater... they are devious schemers in the service of the party of Arlen Specter.


Alinsky: "According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a situation. Alinsky would say, "The first step in community organization is community disorganization."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals
Click to expand...

Ok, i'm interested now, but i'm not following too well here. I understand the idea that some people take "the end justifies the means" too far, and end up advocating murder or torture or whatever based on theoretically good intentions. But from the above paragraph I don't understand what he did that was equivalent - rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities and searching out controversy can all be perfectly acceptable things, in the proper context.

And not to intentionally Godwin this thread, but really, mhaze? Would you be able to tell someone what Hitler did wrong, even if they refused to read Mein Kampf? I'd find it pretty easy myself.
 
mhaze said:
Oh, and I've got an original copy of the jerk's book.

"Fair" is not part of the Alinsky lexicon.
Click to expand...

Nor is it part of Turd Blossom Rove's or the Rushblob's.

I never heard of Alinsky before the pigman started banging on about him. Maybe he is using Alinsky's tactics against the left.
 
Last edited:
stokes234 said:
Ok, i'm interested now, but i'm not following too well here. I understand the idea that some people take "the end justifies the means" too far, and end up advocating murder or torture or whatever based on theoretically good intentions. But from the above paragraph I don't understand what he did that was equivalent - rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities and searching out controversy can all be perfectly acceptable things, in the proper context.

And not to intentionally Godwin this thread, but really, mhaze? Would you be able to tell someone what Hitler did wrong, even if they refused to read Mein Kampf? I'd find it pretty easy myself.
Click to expand...
*Organizations* take 'the ends justify the means' too far... a lot. A whole lot. Especially when there are millions at stake.

If the outcomes are equivalent, as in the case that no matter which party 'wins', the folks at the top benefit most, I fail to appreciate the distinction.
 
mhaze said:
I have no problem with that.

But my comment remains.

But back on the subject of Alinsky, yes I am willing to discuss the book. Get your copy and pick a chapter and page.
Click to expand...
How does this advance the discussion? How is this not off topic?
 
So, let's assume the premise by Crimeresarch.

What does this have to do with the claim made by Gingrich? Can Obama be reasonably tied to Alinsky?
 
RandFan said:
There's that. :)
Click to expand...

I'm sure, were BAC still here, that he would post a long diatribe of link excerpts of people claiming that Alinsky knew so-and-so in the Communist Party, and Obama later knew someone who also knew so-and-so, and therefore it's proven beyond doubt that Obama sucked up every word Alinsky ever said. :)

I wonder if* the frequent reference to "Saul Alinsky" by name, despite nobody really knowing who he was, isn't designed to tap into anti-Semitic sentiments.


* By which I mean "I wonder if," and not "I believe this should be taken as given fact."
 
Last edited:
ANTPogo said:
I think Clinton not wanting to release her college thesis on Alinsky had more to do with not wanting to give people like you ammunition for your conspiracy theories than with her not wanting to reveal The Truth behind her secret Alinsky-Soros-Islamo-Socialist-Feminazi-Commie-Fascist plot to destroy America.
Click to expand...

You forgot Cloward-Piven :p .

The funny thing is that Piven is still alive and has wrote articles about why Beck et al. have no idea what they are talking about.

Here is what I can find on Alinsky:

Born in Chicago in 1909, Alinsky organized communities in his birth city and California, helping minorities in poor neighborhoods exert political force by collectively demanding better working conditions and getting them to polling stations.

Alinsky's most famous book, "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals," describes a confrontational method for curing economic inequality - something most conservatives would shun.

In reference to "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th century primer for political intrigue, Alinsky wrote: "'The Prince' was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. 'Rules for Radicals' is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."

Alinsky further explained his methods in a video clip included in the 1999 documentary "The Democratic Promise: Saul Alinsky and his Legacy."

"First rule of change is controversy," Alinsky said. "You can't get away from it for the simple reason all issues are controversial. Change means movement and movement means friction, and friction means heat, and heat means controversy."
Click to expand...

Linky.

Well, I think that Alinsky’s rules, so to speak … are a little bit like the rules Aristotle wrote about when he wrote Rhetoric, his handbook, one might say, on how to be successful as a persuader. And Aristotle made it pretty clear in that rhetoric itself was a moral, it was a system of rules — really, insights — that could be used for good or not-so-good ends. I think to that extent, what Alinsky sketched out and applied names to using certain kind of tactics can also be used by people who don’t necessarily share his goals. And I think that’s how a lot of the people on the right see the contemporary importance of Alinsky’s tactical brilliance.

As someone who’s been watching this, I’m quite amazed that they became this creative, because it was sort of this two-step process. I think you know the way people on the right, some of the self-appointed theoreticians on the right viewed this Obama-Alinsky connection. At first, they tried to paint it as very sinister, because Alinsky was this nasty guy. But then a good number of those folks on the right decided that no, wait a second, this thing that Alinsky created is a body of knowledge that we can use for our own ends.
Click to expand...

Linky.

Personally, I never heard of the guy before Beck started talking about him.
 
ANTPogo said:
What "chapter and page" in Alinsky's book talks about the reason you, Newt, and other members of the right dislike him so much and keep mentioning him, mhaze?

So we can discuss that.
Click to expand...
The fact that I note Alinsky tactics in the pseudo-educated responses of various people and define them as such does not mean that I "like or dislike" them. Often we note the presence of Alinsky methods substituted in lieu of actual debate based on premises, facts, and idiotology or ideology, take your pick.

Generally speaking, Alinsky tactics are a subset of propaganda tactics and methods.

If you or some other has "never heard of him", why should that be of any importance to me or anyone else? It is simply, as the OP admitted, an expression of ignorance.
 
mhaze said:
Generally speaking, Alinsky tactics are a subset of propaganda tactics and methods.
Click to expand...

So freaking WHAT?

Is Obama evil because he employs some element of the tactics espoused by Alinsky, consciously or otherwise?

Was Bush the Lesser evil because he let Turd Blossom and the merry morons run wild?
 
Last edited:
mhaze said:
The fact that I note Alinsky tactics in the pseudo-educated responses of various people and define them as such does not mean that I "like or dislike" them. Often we note the presence of Alinsky methods substituted in lieu of actual debate based on premises, facts, and idiotology or ideology, take your pick.

Generally speaking, Alinsky tactics are a subset of propaganda tactics and methods.

...

It is simply, as the OP admitted, an expression of ignorance.
Click to expand...
Whatever the hell this is supposed to mean, how does it answer the question?

If you or some other has "never heard of him", why should that be of any importance to me or anyone else?
Click to expand...
Because Gingrich mentioned him. Gingrich seemed to think it was important.
 
crimresearch said:
Why are you so afraid to hear that they are peas in a pod?
Click to expand...

Who said I was afraid to hear anything of the sort? I started this thread because I genuinely didn't know anything about the guy and why Gingrich and a few others have been banging on about him as a way of discrediting Obama.

crimresearch said:
The thing that is bad about Alinsky is the same thing that is bad about Lee Atwater... they are devious schemers in the service of the party of Arlen Specter.


Alinsky: "According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a situation. Alinsky would say, "The first step in community organization is community disorganization."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

Atwater: "The truth is that there was very little that was subconscious about the G.O.P.'s relentless appeal to racist whites. Tired of losing elections, it saw an opportunity to renew itself by opening its arms wide to white voters who could never forgive the Democratic Party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy


Both equally polarizing and polemic, both based on the premise that 'It's OK if 'we' do it, but not if 'they' do it', when the end result is that the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.
Click to expand...

Okay, thanks for answering with something of substance. From the way that Gingrich and co. talk about him I expected the floodgates to burst from the first post almost as if Republicans couldn't wait to talk about him.

But what you are saying is that Alinsky is despised for his tactics rather than his ideology. Unless there's more. Yet, this doesn't seem to gel with what Gingrich said in his victory speech that piqued my interest. If all that Gingrich disliked about Alinsky was his divisive tactics and his stoking of resentments then his own guilt-by-association tactics are no different:

mhaze said:
Here's an example statement by Gingrich.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/22/who-is-saul-alinsky-a-gingrich-line-explained/

... the former House Speaker invoked the name in his victory speech after the South Carolina primary, saying: "The centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky."

And earlier, at a New Year's Eve campaign event in Iowa, Gingrich declared that Obama "really is sort of a classic Saul Alinsky radical whose basic ideas are the opposite of what we need to create jobs."

So who is Saul Alinsky, and why is Gingrich so insistent on linking that name to Obama?
​
I'll note that Gingrich's statements are factually accurate, as you can easily compare the suggested methods of Alinsky with the Bamster. But why should I or anyone else care if some liberals or someone of any persuasion knew who Alinsky was?
Click to expand...

RandFan said:
Is there even a proposition that is in dispute here? What's wrong with Saul Alinsky? That is not an argument. It's not a proposition. I suppose it could be construed as rhetorical but that doesn't seem to be the case. Is Newt's boogey man so obscure as to be meaningless? :rolleyes:

Perhaps that was rhetorical.
Click to expand...

Thanks Randfan. Yes, the question was a genuine one and not rhetorical at all. But in the vain hope that it will make any difference at all to Mhaze and in the slightly more hopeful hope that it will make a difference to crimresearch I want to reassert that I really am interested in understanding what it is about Saul Alinsky that so gives the Republicans the willies.

From there we can see if there is anything about his programme (or tactics, if one so wishes) that can be applied to Obama.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom